Presidential donations not exempt from RTI, rules HC

The President of India will now have to be more forthcoming about donations made by him or her. The Delhi High Court ruled on Thursday that donations given by the President are inside the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, as these are made from public funds.

"Every citizen is entitled to know as to how the money, which is collected by the State by exaction, has been utilised. Merely because the person making the donations happens to be the President of India, it is no ground to withhold the said information. The Honbl President isn't immune from the application of the Act," Justice Vipin Sanghi said.

The court upheld the Chief Information Commissioner's order directing the President's secretariat to make public the names of recipients of donations and the amount donated.

The CIC had, on 4 May, ruled in favour of an applicant, Nitish Kumar Tripathi, who filed nine RTI petitions seeking an exhaustive list of recipients of the President's gifts. Thereupon the President's secretariat approached the court, arguing that such disclosures would affect the right to privacy of the recipients.

While rejecting every argument made by the secretariat against the CIC's order, the court said, "What is important is that it is a public fund from which donations are being made by the President and not his/her private fund …'' The judge reminded the secretariat that public funds are those which are collected by the state from citizens by imposition of taxes, duties, cess, and service charges, and "are held by the State in trust for being utilised for the benefit of the general public."

Justice Sanghi further said, "Such acts of generosity and magnanimity done by the President should be placed in the public domain as they would enhance the stature of the office of the President of India. In that sense, the disclosure of the information would be in the public interest as well."